God’s Glory Magnifies in Morocco

He said to me, “We must pray for compassion, and then we will know what we must do.”

This was the statement of a Moroccan believer, former leader of a Mosque, after reading the story of the raising to life of the only son of the widow from Nain. The text says, When our Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and he said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then Jesus came and touched the open coffin, and those who carried him stood still, and he said, Young man, I say to you, arise. (Luke 7:13-14)

Families like the Broadbents of New Zealand were expelled from Morocco in 2010 solely for their Christian beliefs. Though the family lived in the country 10 years, police gave them one hour to gather their belongings and leave the country. Photo courtesy of One News of New Zealand.

The Moroccan believer made his statement during the last gathering with the missionaries who had brought the gospel to his village. This brother was one of 23 new believers were baptized during the years the foreign missionaries worked there.

And his desire for Christ’s compassion shows that, indeed, the Holy Spirit is within him. Because of this we do not despair that those who brought the gospel are no longer there. God is with this brother, and with the other believers; as they pray for compassion, they will know what to do.

The couple was expelled from Morocco, a terrible grief for them to bear. But now they have taken a new assignment in a more foreign land in Asia. And that is why I love them. They are still able to communicate with the Moroccan believers. What is as remarkable as the spiritual insight given to this Moroccan believer, is the way the Lord not only brought the expelled missionaries through a time of grieving and disorientation, but that He also actually re-deployed them, at 50 years of age, to live and work among Muslims in South Asia. It is as if the Lord knows that the healing from an unexpected and unwanted expulsion will come. It will come for them by having at it again, in another place where there is little, if any, gospel witness!

In the first Skype conversation the workers had with this Moroccan brother, he asked all about their new city. After listening to what they are facing with learning a new language, a new culture, adjusting to a hectic, crowded, polluted city, with so much religious confusion, he said, “We must pray for you.”

The significance of his asking about what it was like for them and his promise to pray for them must be acknowledged. This Moroccan believer along with the 22 others in his village who follow Jesus, have accepted the role from the Lord to serve as partners with the two missionaries who were the first to bring them the message of Jesus, now living in South Asia. The Moroccans know first-hand what it meant, by way of effort and challenge, for these missionaries to live in Morocco. They saw the tears the workers shed when they were forced to leave.

And they knew that this couple could have easily opted to remain in America and enjoy the comforts in the nation to which almost every Moroccan would give anything to get a visa. But the Moroccan believers also know what the workers know. That there is no greater joy than seeing people who have not before known the mercy of God, give glory to God for His mercy.

Ultimately, all true worker service and effort is undertaken so that we can see and glory in Christ Jesus as the gospel accomplishes salvation in the earth. All is endured so that we might be instruments in the hand of Christ as he wins obedience to himself among the peoples of the earth. Being there, being part of that, seeing that with our own eyes what Christ can do, is life’s greatest romance, life’s greatest prize.